Double Skill Maxima

[Mike Sullivan]

I've been contemplating a Rogue-biased D&D game recently, in which most or all characters would be single or multi-classed Rogues doing urban kind of stuff.

One thing that immediately stood out to me is that a traditional thief-like Rogue can pretty easily max out every traditional thief skill -- Hide, Move Silently, Climb, Open Locks, Disable Device, and Pick Pockets, say, are only 6 skills, and a Rogue can max 8 skills, or, for, say, a human with a 12 Int, 10 skills.

Given that it's not unreasonable for each character to max 6 to 8 of the most common skills, and then spread some points among other utility skills, I'm looking at a loss of differentiation: there will be only skill focus and attribute differentiation in a lot of the most common skills. This seems like a shame.

So, I was considering just doubling the skill maxima for everyone and everything. So, you could have at most 8 ranks in a class skill at first level, or 4 in a cross-class. At second level, 10 and 5, etc.

My thought was that then you couldn't max many skills at all, unless you wanted to be a monomaniac: You'd max maybe one or two skills, and then get to about the "halfway" point in other utility skills.

But there are drawbacks. First off, I'm afraid that I'm going to make people unbeatable in their specialty -- that if you've been maxing Hide and Move Silently, nobody will ever see you unless they've been maxing Spot and Listen. Secondly, I'm worried that I'm devaluing attributes -- that +4 from your 18 Dex looks a lot less impressive when someone could have 14 ranks in a skill at 3rd level.

What do you think? Is doubling skill maxima an okay idea (within the context of a rogue-focused game)? Should it be x1.5 instead? Or should I maybe do something different, like allowing people to exceed skill maxima for additional cost?

 

[Crothian]

Well, it will be mnuch easier to get synergy bonuse and tyo qualify for many prestige classers. Personaly, when I did an all rogue game we found that only about 4 skills were maxed and the rest had a few ranks in each. There are many more then 6 skills that are good. Usually people hada list of 16 skills they wanted to try to keep decent ranks in.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Well, it will be mnuch easier to get synergy bonuse and tyo qualify for many prestige classers.

I probably won't be allowing any prestige classes. I don't see this as the kind of game in which they'd be appropriate.

Personaly, when I did an all rogue game we found that only about 4 skills were maxed and the rest had a few ranks in each. There are many more then 6 skills that are good. Usually people hada list of 16 skills they wanted to try to keep decent ranks in.

Sure, there are more than six skills which are good. But I'm seeing a number of skills that I expect everyone to get. It probably won't be the six traditional AD&D thief skills -- rather, I'm expecting more like Hide, Move Silently, Bluff, Spot, Listen, Climb.

And I would like people to have the option of being "the sneaky one," even if it's just a matter of degree over the other sneaky ones.

 

[Drawmack]

I would suggest that instead of this you ban the rogue class and then set about making some less dynamic homebrew classes to replace it. Maybe a non-martial rogue who gets the skills to gather information overtly (more then just gather info) who is an invetigator. And a thief who gets the theiving stuff, etc.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

I would suggest that instead of this you ban the rogue class and then set about making some less dynamic homebrew classes to replace it. Maybe a non-martial rogue who gets the skills to gather information overtly (more then just gather info) who is an invetigator. And a thief who gets the theiving stuff, etc.

I don't think that this will really work.

Suppose I create classes like, I dunno:

Safecracker (Search, Disable Device, Open Locks)
Cat Burglar (Hide, Move Silently, Climb)
Negotiator (Bluff, Gather Information, Sense Motive)

(Or whatever).

Each of them has the same skill points as a Rogue, but fewer class skills.

So, the smart player just goes ahead and multiclasses, right? He's got a plethora of skill points, and instead of using them to buy a few class skills and then a bunch of cross-class skills at the less advantageous rate, he just uses them to buy up two or three levels worth of class skills at once.

Okay, you say, give 'em fewer skill points, then. But why bother to create the different classes, in that case? I could just knock the Rogue down to 4 skill points per level, and thus lower the number of skills that each person could max.

And, finally, while I conceive of this game as Rogue-focused, I don't intend to demand that everyone be a pure Rogue. I can definitely see multiclassing for utility. If I want to keep in-balance multiclass characters, I need to not weaken Rogue as a class. Which pretty much rules out all of the above ideas.

 

[Plane Sailing]

What do you think? Is doubling skill maxima an okay idea (within the context of a rogue-focused game)? Should it be x1.5 instead? Or should I maybe do something different, like allowing people to exceed skill maxima for additional cost?

I don't think it would work, I think allowing double the skill maximum is going to be far, far too much. At 7th level they could have 20 ranks, for goodness sake!

You could raise the skill cap, so that instead of level+3 it becomes level+5 - this would increase the opportunity for differentiation at low levels without making them runaway skill monsters before they reach mid levels.

Another option, if it is a rogue only game, is to *reduce* the number of skill points they get to 4. That way they would have to choose carefully, and nobody would be disadvantaged against the others!

Another option is to double the cost of certain key skills, like spot or hide or use magic device.

Another option is to make it clear that the adventures will require the use of the whole range of 22 rogue skills, and that maxing out certain ones for everyone won't make sense.

Another option is to set up a number of "roles" and require the players to create a team of rogues between them, so that each of the PC's chooses their own focus out of the required team roles, thus encouraging them to specialise.

Cheers

 

[Khorod]

Rather than create all new classes, why not break off parts of the huge rogue skill list into different packages.

Are you playing the Cat Burglar? Then you get Cilmb, Balance, & Tumble as class skill.

The Pick Pocket? Then you get Pick Pockets, Hide, & Move silently.

This will sort of force a little differentiation, but if they're all rogues then making some skills cross-class should be okay, as long as you don't rub their faces in the npc's skill selections.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Re: Re: Double Skill Maxima

I don't think it would work, I think allowing double the skill maximum is going to be far, far too much. At 7th level they could have 20 ranks, for goodness sake!

Well, that's my fear as well -- that it goes too far.

How about *1.5 to the skill cap? So, 6 class/3 cross-class at first level 7/3.5 at 2nd level, 9/4.5 at 3rd level?

You could raise the skill cap, so that instead of level+3 it becomes level+5 - this would increase the opportunity for differentiation at low levels without making them runaway skill monsters before they reach mid levels.

The thing is, this caps the observable difference. Suppose it's the Level + 5 instead of level + 3 thing. Then, the person who decides to totally max his skill vs the person who decides to put just the "normal" number of points into it is 2 ranks better.

That's not bad at first level. But at 7th, you're probably talking the difference between a total of +14 to the roll and +16 -- not a huge difference on way or the other.

Another option, if it is a rogue only game, is to *reduce* the number of skill points they get to 4. That way they would have to choose carefully, and nobody would be disadvantaged against the others!

As I said above, I want to preserve the viability of multi-classing.

Another option is to double the cost of certain key skills, like spot or hide or use magic device.

At a minimum, this sounds like penalizing certain concepts. At a maximum, it sounds like effectively lowering the number of skill points Rogues get.

Another option is to make it clear that the adventures will require the use of the whole range of 22 rogue skills, and that maxing out certain ones for everyone won't make sense.

I frankly doubt that I'm going to be able to back that up. I mean, I might use all 22 skills -- but I very much doubt that I'll manage to make them all equally useful. Especially since I try to present my players with open-ended problems and let them find their own solutions, rather than guide them through a narrow list of options.

Since people seem pretty unhappy with the doubled skill ranks thing, what if I went another way?

Suppose that there was no skill maximum at all -- but going above the "normal" maximum cost double skill points?

So, if you wanted to, you could get 8 ranks of Hide at level 1 -- but it'd cost 12 points (4 points to get 4 ranks, then 8 more points to get the next 4 ranks).

Alternately, what if I created a Feat that was like "improved skill focus" or something -- something that increased the maximum of a single given skill by, like, 2 ranks, and was stackable?

So, a cat-burglar might get this feat -- call it "Skill Prodigy" -- at first level for the Hide feat, and get the Hide skill at 6 ranks. Then, at 3rd level, he gets it for Move Silently, and the Move Silently maximum becomes 8 (as is the Hide skill at that point). Then, at 6th level, he gets it for Hide again, and his maximum for Hide is 13.

 

[Drawmack]

I don't think that this will really work.

It worked for me in the same situation.

Suppose I create classes like, I dunno:

Safecracker (Search, Disable Device, Open Locks)
Cat Burglar (Hide, Move Silently, Climb)
Negotiator (Bluff, Gather Information, Sense Motive)

well good start but a touch more generic names. Like Infiltrator, etc.

Each of them has the same skill points as a Rogue, but fewer class skills.

Yup

So, the smart player just goes ahead and multiclasses, right? He's got a plethora of skill points, and instead of using them to buy a few class skills and then a bunch of cross-class skills at the less advantageous rate, he just uses them to buy up two or three levels worth of class skills at once.

So he multiclasses. With the first level of everything except the base class he does not get his x4 sp bonus. Also while all the skills for any class the character holds are class skills for defining max ranks taking ranks is not the same. When you take ranks in skill you buy them with points that belong to a specific class and if the skill is cross-class to the class who owns the points then you pay for the ranks at a cost of 1 point/0.5 ranks. So this still fixes the problem even with the min/maxing multiclasser.

And, finally, while I conceive of this game as Rogue-focused, I don't intend to demand that everyone be a pure Rogue. I can definitely see multiclassing for utility. If I want to keep in-balance multiclass characters, I need to not weaken Rogue as a class. Which pretty much rules out all of the above ideas.

This is another reason for the more multiple rogue types.

I have the Ruffian - he had sneak attack bonus, rogue skills that added in getting to the mark, and a fighter's bonus feat every 3 levels. I have the investigator who has all the rogue skills and skill points & evasion with a sneak attack that is half as fast as a regular rogue but begining at fourth level they can cast a limited number of arcane spells all with a focus in investigating. etc. etc.

I allows you to create more specialized classes that give the player the benefits of multiclassing without multiclassing and it is less prone to min/maxing then using the core system. It also has the benefit of making sure you don't wind up with carbon copy characters accidently.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

So he multiclasses. With the first level of everything except the base class he does not get his x4 sp bonus. Also while all the skills for any class the character holds are class skills for defining max ranks taking ranks is not the same. When you take ranks in skill you buy them with points that belong to a specific class and if the skill is cross-class to the class who owns the points then you pay for the ranks at a cost of 1 point/0.5 ranks. So this still fixes the problem even with the min/maxing multiclasser.

No, no, you don't get it.

Okay, so suppose the character wants to max Move Silently, Climb, Hide, Search, Disable Device, and Open Locks.

First level, he takes, say, Safecracker. He gets (say) (8+1+1)x4 = 40 skill points, and first off, he maxes the class skills Search, Disable Device, and Open Locks. That takes 12 skill points. He takes another 12 to get to 2 in his cross-class skills that he wants to specialize in -- Move Silently, Climb, and Hide. Then he throws his remaining 16 points around into whatever skills he wants a few ranks in.

Second level, he takes Cat Burglar. He has 10 skill points. He ignores Search, Disable Device, and Open Locks, and instead spends 9 skill points to raise Hide, Move Silently, and Climb to rank 5 each (since they're class for this particular level, he buys them at 1:1).

Third level, he goes back to Safecracker. He has 10 skill points. He ignores Hide, Move Silently, and Climb, and instead spends 6 skill points raising Search, Disable Device, and Open Locks to 6 ranks each.

Fourth level, he takes Cat Burglar. He has 10 skill points. He uses 6 of them to raise Hide, Move Silently, and Climb to 7 ranks each.

As you can see, this is now a stable system. Instead of buying one rank of each skill the character is interested in at every level, he buys two ranks of each skill every other level, hop-skotching. After first level, he doesn't buy any cross-class skills.

The only thing that this nets me is that there's some "friction" at first level as they struggle to get around the fact that they only have a one-off x4 skill point multiplier. A lot of effort for little effect.

This is another reason for the more multiple rogue types.

I have the Ruffian - he had sneak attack bonus, rogue skills that added in getting to the mark, and a fighter's bonus feat every 3 levels. I have the investigator who has all the rogue skills and skill points & evasion with a sneak attack that is half as fast as a regular rogue but begining at fourth level they can cast a limited number of arcane spells all with a focus in investigating. etc. etc.

I allows you to create more specialized classes that give the player the benefits of multiclassing without multiclassing and it is less prone to min/maxing then using the core system. It also has the benefit of making sure you don't wind up with carbon copy characters accidently.

Uh, there's no way I'm going to run a D&D game in which I have to throw out all the existing core classes and make 3 to 6 new core classes. If that were the only way I could do it, I'd play it in a classless game like Fudge or GURPS.

But I think this is a mountain out of a molehill. I don't see any reason something simple like *2 or *1.5 skill maxima wouldn't work.